CES 2025: Bally, Samsung’s Robotic Home Assistant, Returns
When CES began this year, one topic came up again and again among reporters: “Where’s Bally?” images on the floor or wall. While Bally wasn’t as heavily present at CES as he was last year, he made an appearance at Samsung’s booth and gave a presentation and materials with news from Samsung that Bally should be available “it.” year.”
Ballie has had a long journey since it was introduced at CES 2020 . At that point, Bally was just a concept that looked like it was 3D printed at home. By last year, the Ballie was a fully functional model; As the centerpiece of Samsung’s CES presentation, it promised to be a companion, a security team, and the living embodiment of your voice assistant for SmartThings. (SmartThings is Samsung’s smart home platform, perhaps the fourth largest behind Apple, Google and Amazon.)
And then for most of the year we heard nothing.
By the time Ballie reappeared at IFA (International Technology Fair) in September, the situation had improved significantly, moving closer to a real model ready for consumer use. This Bally interacted in real language and expressed emotions – the result of tightly integrated artificial intelligence. He could follow commands, call people, and predict the needs of people and pets in the home. It can recognize the objects you are holding and then provide you with information about them. It could make decisions about whether to project small pieces of information or more detailed data, and then choose the right location to project that information.
This year Ballie is being actively showcased to visitors rather than just being a one-off show in the spotlight. It projects choices to the user as virtual buttons on the floor and can control devices through SmartThings integration.
Looking at Bally’s current design (a sphere on two front wheels with a rear fin for balance), I’m reminded of the Enabot Rola , a tiny personal robot I’ve been testing out for the past few months. While I didn’t think much of the Enabot overall, its design makes the robot surprisingly durable. No matter what it hits or collides with (including my Doberman’s jaws), the low center of gravity allows the Enabot to quickly regain its upright position. I suspect that Bally may have the same flexibility of movement.
While I don’t have any idea yet about pricing or availability other than the faint promise Samsung offered to reporters this week about an upcoming release within the next calendar year, it’s pretty clear that Ballie is becoming a more viable consumer product with each appearance. .